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Oh, Look! A New Phone!

Today, Amazon introduced the long-rumored Fire Phone. It has the killer 3D effects that everyone talked about. But it also has a few neat features that you won’t see in any other phone out there…

Firefly

Firefly is something that only makes sense for an Amazon phone. It’s a sort of Shazam for everything, with a deep integration with Amazon.com.

Point And Shoot And Buy

Point your camera at a phone number, a book cover or a bar code, and Firefly will automatically detect the phone number, the name of the book or the product.

It Works With Movies And Music Too

It doesn’t stop there. You can also point your phone at the TV to detect what TV show is playing. Just like Shazam, you can identify songs, as well.

And There Is A Dedicated Firefly Button

But the best part is that Amazon put a physical Firefly button on the side of the device. In other words, you can now buy stuff on your Amazon shopping machine in 2 or 3 seconds.

Unlimited Photo Storage

While the Fire Phone comes with 32GB or 64GB of storage, your photos will also be uploaded to Amazon’s Cloud Drive. It’s free and unlimited.

Mayday! Mayday!

Last year, Mayday was by far the killer feature of the Kindle Fire HDX introduction. In one tap, a customer support representative appears on your screen to guide you. The Fire Phone will come with Mayday, as well.

3D Dynamic Perspective

And then, there are the 3D effects. Throughout the phone, when you move your head, the app moves with you. For example, the building on the left moves with your head (it won’t technically work on your current display because you’re not using this new phone, sorry).

3D Everywhere

Enabled by four cameras on the front, a lot of the user interface takes advantage of the dynamic perspective feature. Your photos will move with your head — your lock screen, as well. It is visually impressive when you see it in person, but is it more than just a gimmick?

And There Is An SDK

Third-party developers can take advantage of the four cameras and develop their own apps and games. In particular, 3D games could be cool as there are different perspectives on the screen.

Welcome To The Prime Ecosystem

Finally, as you would expect from Amazon, the Fire Phone seamlessly works with Prime content. Prime Instant Video, Prime Music, Kindle e-books… All of this is baked into the phone. And one more thing, every Fire Phone comes with a year of Prime for free.